Schwartz is an award-winning journalist with two decades of experience in magazines, newspapers and electronic media. He has covered the information security and privacy sector throughout his career. Before joining Information Security Media Group in 2014, where he now serves as the Executive Editor, DataBreachToday and for European news coverage, Schwartz was the information security beat reporter for InformationWeek and a frequent contributor to DarkReading, amongst other publications. He lives in Scotland.

A swift FBI sinkhole blunted an apparently imminent attack against Ukraine via "VPN Firewall" malware, which has infected more than 500,000 routers. But mass router compromises will continue so long as manufacturers fail to build in easy or automated patching and updating, security experts warn.

The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a broadside against Amazon, warning that Amazon Rekognition - mixing big data, machine learning and facial recognition - could be abused by authoritarian regimes. Amazon has countered by saying that all users must "comply with the law."

Following 33 arrests, police in Europe say they have dismantled a Romanian-led crime gang that used phishing attacks, online scams and fake invoices to steal more than $9 million from victims in Spain, including individuals as well as organizations ranging from hospitals to government agencies.

Researchers have discovered two new Spectre/Meltdown variants: variant 3a, a rogue system register read, and variant 4, a speculative store bypass. Some AMD, ARM, Intel and IBM Power chips have the flaws, which attackers could exploit to steal sensitive data. Some fixes have already been shipped.

John Gammell of New Mexico has been sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for launching DDoS attacks against prior employers and business competitors, as well as for being a convicted felon in possession of firearms.

Following the disclosure of a flaw in the website of LocationSmart that could have been easily exploited to track the location of cellular phone users throughout the U.S. in real time, the Federal Communications Commission has referred the matter to its enforcement bureau for investigation.

Following reports about U.S. companies that enable government and other users to access real-time tracking information for all major U.S. wireless carriers' subscribers, provider Securus Technologies has reportedly been hacked, while LocationSmart has fixed a data-exposing flaw.

Leading the latest edition of the ISMG Security Report: Years of massive data breaches have fueled an increase in synthetic identity fraud, in which fraudsters combine real and bogus details to create more effective fake identities. Plus, has "The Dark Overlord" hacking group finally met its match?

The Trump administration has eliminated the top cybersecurity coordinator role in the White House. The decision has earned a sharp rebuke from lawmakers and former government officials, who say cybersecurity demands a greater - not lesser - prominence in the federal government.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, via a myPersonality test on Facebook, reportedly used data from 3 million users to power a spin-off company that delivered targeted advertising services. Facebook says the app is one of 200 that it's suspended for suspicious data handling practices.

Chili's Grill & Bar is warning customers that an unknown number of payment cards were compromised at an unknown number of corporate-owned locations earlier this year for a period of time it suspects lasted two months. Should Chili's have waited to alert customers until it had more information?

European computer security researchers say they have discovered vulnerabilities that relate to two techniques used to encrypt emails: PGP and S/MIME. Security experts recommend all PGP users immediately delete or disable their PGP tools, pending a full fix.

With the rise of P2P payment networks and the U.S. working toward a real-time national payments network, the push is on to battle fraudsters. Also, attackers are hacking legitimate websites to more stealthily distribute "Gandcrab" crypto-locking ransomware.

Adequately tracking the nonstop arrival and departure of officials in the Trump White House might require real-time, multidimensional flowcharts. But one thing is clear: The White House is facing a looming cybersecurity knowledge and expertise deficit, and that deficit may soon get worse.

Spectre and Meltdown: It's déjà vu all over again as Intel is reportedly prepping a coordinated vulnerability disclosure announcement for eight new speculative execution flaws. One of the new flaws is apparently worse than any of the three Spectre/Meltdown variants that came to light in January.

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